Velika Rutarjeva jama
Beautiful cave above the village of Volče near Pivka - 2019-02
Recently, I mostly count visits of the cave Križna jama, which does not mean that we do not look elsewhere, there is simply not enough time. But time can always be found for new discoveries. They are always tempting, because the cave is still beautiful, clean and undamaged when it's discovered. In the last week, the newly discovered cave in the village of Volče near Pivka was a real media sensation. There were news in various media, television crews wandered around the village, and not a day went by without someone mentioning this cave.
The entrance to the cave was discovered by the local man Goran Rutar, who in winter discovered a section of melted snow, which usually indicates the air draft or the entrance to the cave. He showed what he found to the experienced Sežana caver Ludvik Husu, who, together with the caver Claudio Bratos, immediately began to widen the opening. There was not much work, but the result was a wonderful find.
After a short but narrow entry, a nice entrance hall opens, which after a few dozen meters steeply descends down the slope until a short narrowing. Some expanding was needed, and after a short slope, a passage of larger dimensions opens up in a smaller hall, which surprises with a beautiful ceiling and beautifully preserved rock slabs that fell from the ceiling and sediment. Of course, everyone wants to keep this scene untouched as long as possible, which will require from each visitor a caution and sense of conservation. Usually, a simple tip: “walk where someone has already walked” can help.
An even more interesting part of the cave opens at the side in the larger collapsed passage, where, through a short gradient, we descend into a large, exceptionally beautifully decorated hall. With around 50 meters in length it evenly descends to the final point, which at the moment represents the end of the cave. A walk through such a wonderful and unspoiled world is of course a magnificent experience, meant especially for careful visitors. Our concern, for example, was showed in the fact that before entering, we put on clean neoprene shoes, and in this way we could carefree wander among the speleothem beauties.
Fortunately, the cave is not muddy, and the overalls remain quite clean until the large hall, which gives at least some hope that the cave will remain in the original condition for a while. If the cavers will add clean additional shoes to the transport bag and put them on before the large hall, we can extend this time. But it is hard to advise unscrupulous cavers who are destroying the cave by walking on the pools, and touch speleothems with the dirty gloves, or break speleothems due to clumsiness. Unfortunately, despite raising the awareness, it is still happening.
Research in the cave has not yet been completed. There are some possibilities that show in the adjacent air drafts, also in the cave there are some questions that need to be resolved. Photo shoot was done by great helpers Anja, Uroš and Yana and myself as photographer.
